6th Generation Airport Extreme

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6th Generation Airport Extreme

I've been using a 5th generation Airport Extreme as a wifi-extender for a number of different third party wifi routers. Recently, I bought a 6th generation Airport Extreme (Airport Extreme 802.11ac) and discovered that it won't extend my SmartRG router wifi network, but my 5th Gen Extreme will.

When I set up my 5th Gen Extreme to extend a third party router the drop-down menu is full with all the same networks that show up when I would normally connect my laptop, and yet the same drop down menu for the 6th Gen Extreme is entirely blank and when I type in the exact same SSID and password, the extreme says no wifi network with that information can be found. Yet, when I set up my 5th Gen and then ask the 6th gen to extend the 5th gen it's seamless, but the 6th gen won't extend the SmartRg router.

Is this normal?

Posted on Jan 1, 2021 11:02 AM

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Answer 1

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Bob Timmons

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Jan 1, 2021 12:02 PM in response to Daevrojn

I'm amazed that a 5th Gen AirPort Extreme would extend the wireless signal from a third party router because Apple designed their "extend" feature to only work with other Apple routers.

Through the years, I've never found a third party router that was compatible with Apple's "extend" wireless feature, but I guess some might exist.

Are you sure that the 5th Gen AiPort is really "extending" and not just "joining" the network? It's possible that the 5th Gen can join other 3rd party WiFi networks, but it won't "extend" the signal when it simply joins a network.

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Answer 2

Daevrojn Author

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8 points

Jan 1, 2021 12:32 PM in response to Bob Timmons

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the response. I guess you're right. In my frustration to set up my Airports, they now behave as you expected them to. I really do swear, I had the 5th Gen extending a third party router and I really do swear I saw all the networks in the drop down menu. But since posting this and fiddling with the routers and turning them on and off, it stopped working the way I expected them to.

I guess I was confused between join and extend.

I really appreciate your quick reply and help, or rather, clarification of what I was most likely experiencing.

Thanks.

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Answer 3

Jan 1, 2021 12:44 PM in response to Daevrojn

I suppose anything is possible, but I've never been able to get an AirPort router to wirelessly extend a network provided by a Netgear, Linksys, ATT, Cisco, Fios etc router.

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6th Generation Airport Extreme

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